Grieving

Yesterday I went back to work after a 28 day leave of absence. It's the only time I have been gone that long in the 13 years I've worked there. I would have taken 6 weeks if we did not have such a huge project going on; I was worried about the girls not being ready to go to the next phase of their life. Daycare. Which we call at our house, "Summer School". Regular school session is over this week, so it would have been a waste to enroll them. These children, especially older, have ingrained in them that they will be attending school when they get to where they are going...USA...Canada...France. I think most of them are very excited about that. I know mine are. I have no way to explain the concept of daycare to them, so that is why I'm calling it Summer School. That is a concept they can sort of grasp. Except I don't think they know what 'summer' means. I was afraid to put them in a regular summer day camp. Those tend to be large and rowdy and I feared they would get swallowed up. I am optimistic that they will pick up language quickly, but I knew they were going to need some special attention. I chose a smaller daycare, close to my work, that has a diversified staff. They also have a summer camp session, but since it is small, I think they will be OK and I also think they will have fun. I am hoping that the whole experience will help them with their English.

So I was nervous yesterday. I was afraid they would freak out. I could tell they were nervous and maybe a little afraid, and little ML cried a little when I left. But I did not get a phone call all day, and when I went to pick them up, they still looked a little nervous and scared, and they were happy to see me, but the staff said they did well. After we left, I was afraid they would not ever want to go back but I was wrong about that. They started talking about it immediately and wanted to go back. I had to explain they had to wait till the next day to go back. They learned two new words, 'Tabasco' and ' gum'. LOL.

Later after we got home, W had her first full on grief meltdown. I knew it was coming but was sorta thinking it might come later than this. It was triggered by something small (as always seems to be the case with meltdowns of any sort) but once she let go of it, she really let go. How do you know it's grief? Well, it's a deep and melancholy cry that seems to progress, but it's also recognizable if you have ever been there. Deborah Gray says in her excellent book "Attaching in Adoption" that the closest thing that we as a parent might experience to this type of grief would be if our husband/wife/partner ditches us after a long term relationship and/or marriage, leaving us to hold the shattered pieces of the relationship and wondering what just happened. Although, as she puts it, we come to realize eventually that perhaps this person did us a favor. Different even than death. With death, at least we come to an understanding (hopefully) and acceptance comes faster, but in the other scenario we are left with alot of unanswered questions and a lack of closure. Different than a mutual break-up. Well, this happened to me fairly recently, between this story and what happened here.. (and someday perhaps I will write the in-between, but not today)... I think that relationship might have literally killed me, had it continued. And although I know that logically, it been a long crawl out of the wilderness. Let me just give you the short version. I know that level of grief. And so apparently, for me it had a larger purpose, I can sort of grasp what she's feeling. I recognized that cry. I was able to rub her back, stroke her hair and let that hurt little girl come out. And she is hurt, make no mistake. I think my new blog name for her is going to be 'Little Miss Lady' because that is how she acts much of the time. She holds it all in and keeps it all together, way too much for a nine year old child. But the hurt is there, and it has to come out. I don't know how long it will take, but with grief, it takes what it takes. The good thing is, children are capable of healing MUCH faster than we are. For her, I am banking on that. After about 15 minutes, little ML, who was totally freaked out to see her older sister, her rock, lose it, suggested we go for a ride in the 'machine', which we did, and got ice cream cones too. The rest of the night was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.